(cont'd from yesterday's post)
In 1775 a man by the name of Garrettson freed his own slaves and began to preach that all slaveholders should do the same. Plantation owner Stokley Sturgis in Delaware heard the message, and agreed - slaveholding was sinful. He gave his slaves an opportunity to buy their freedom, and Richard Allen did just that in 1780.
Though a Methodist like Harry Hoosier and Bishop Asbury, he didn't choose to travel like them. Instead, he became a preacher in 1786 at St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia. But prayer and worship was racially segregated.
Allen and another preacher led their congregants out of that church. They started the Free African Society and bought a lot for a new church building, the oldest property in America which has been held continuously by African Americans. In 1799 Bishop Asbury ordained him as the first black American Episcopal priest.
For 34 years, Richard and Sarah Allen operated a station on the underground railroad until he died in 1831.
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